Is the wii's laser actually reading the disc in system menu?

In system menu, after having inserted a disc and waited for it to load in the disc channel,you can hear that the disc is still spinning. Is the wii's laser actually reading the disc though? Backups do shorten the life of the laser afterall, so for those with modchips/cioscorp(as I have), would leaving a disc in the wii while in system menu shorten the life of the wii laser as it would while you are actually playing a game? Or am i a paranoid cock? :P

"I think" the disc stops spinning after a few minutes. I'm pretty sure that there is a sort of a clunk sound after which i can no loger hear the disc spinning. I have no idea if the laser is running the whole time but i don't imagine it would otherwise it would cause unneeded wear even if running real discs.